GIS Helps Holy City of Touba With Land Management Presented By: Islam M. Alhady M. Ali By: Tiffany Potter, Scientific Technologies Corporation Web Address: Topic Number: 13 Date: November 19, 2004

GIS Helps Holy City of Touba With Land Management The location of this project was in west Africa, in the holy city of Touba, west Africa, in the holy city of Touba,Senegal. The Khalif attempted to distribute parcels of land to his people. In the past, land had been given away to followers of the Khalif's family without formal documentation The problem was that there had no way of knowing whether or not a particular piece of property had already been given away and no way to track property titles because none from his followers existed.

The city growth was fast (150,000 at 1990, and reached 2,000,000 at 2004). There was desperate need of a management system. This system required to create a parcel database that would house information relevant to the distribution of the Khalif's land. A small tax was suggested from the Khalif and his Consultants to fund this project. They needed to create database to collect and store tax information

OBJECTIVES Local company (MTS) Afrique and (MTC) was the responsible for creating the technical solution to the problems facing the holy city. A new landownership and tax support system was established named (The Geographic Information System of Management and Information of the Allotment of Touba “SIGGIL”). They established land records, parcel numbering system, created tax parcel IDs. The result was that Approximately 300,000 acres of land were allocated to more than 100,000 people.

SOFTWARE USED IN PROJECT MapObjects LT 2 as the map control because of its speed and lightweight properties, also It integrated well with the Visual Basic code and display rapidly the maps that were created. Shape files were created using ArcGIS Desktop 8.2 and ArcView 3.x. Maps are used to query user and parcel data using the identify tool or as an interface to access information from other screens of owner and parcel data. Now all is able to find a property by the owner's name, parcel number, or location on a map. Utilizing GIS, maps are sent with background satellite imagery to neighborhood representatives for review and confirmation of ownership

IMPACT ON COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT City leaders are then able to determine locations for the to determine locations for the construction of new buildings that is made necessary by the that is made necessary by the population growth. population growth. (SIGGIL) is now capable of expanding to support additional services such as: -Tracking. -Tracking. -monitoring. -monitoring. -Analysis of community facilities. -Analysis of community facilities. -Population health information. -Population health information. -Environmental and hygiene data. -Environmental and hygiene data.